Let me paraphrase for you, “If you want to be great in the kingdom; if you want to sit at my right and left, let me show you how…go to the back of line and let everyone else get in front of you and walk with that kind of humility where you aren’t trying to be seen or promoted. Define your life by how much you have served others. To be great, you have to be a servant.”

In your biblical mind you are saying AMEN🙏. However, in your earthly mind, chances are you may not be as aren’t saying a thing perhaps! You have been conditioned to make sure you are a mogul, not a servant. This insinuates that you aren’t successful if you are serving people as you feel people should be serving you. You want to be the best, at the top, chauffeur and at the front of the line.

You don’t pray to God to make you a servant! You never thought that the best life for you is to be a servant. Why? Well, society has taught us that its demeaning. However, Jesus says, “as soon as you get an entourage that becomes your ambition, you fail. Unless that entourage becomes an extension of your service.”

The difference between living and abundant living is SERVICE! You are a spouse or parent, but do you serve? What is the level of your service? How do you serve your spouse, children, family? What is the quality and intensity of your service? A good life is defined by how close you are able to walk to earth. What is the quality of your capacity for humility? Love justice, do mercy and walk mercy with your God. Arrogance and pride destroys marriages, businesses and families. People acting out of ego, not by ministry or service, get further from the true holistic success they crave. Many people just want their bills paid and they see God as a cosmic bellhop or ATM machine. They reduce the divine/human relationship to the issue of needs – you only have a God because you need a God. But believers, who understand faith know that you cannot have peace and joy without God! And you cannot have a committed and fulfilling life without a relationship with the Creator who created you!

3rd John 1:2 “in all things ye master prosper and be in good health even as your soul prospers.” The prospering of your soul should become the criteria by which the rest of your life prospers. But what if your soul isn’t prospering? What does it mean? Greek word for prosper is “edo.” Prosperity preachers have ruined you by reducing it to “stuff.” The more stuff you got, the more faith you must have so you must be prosperous. “Edo” means a good journey in Greek. Not good stuff.

Your soul prospers in reference to a good journey. It’s not what the soul has, but what the soul goes through that makes it good. Its about the journey that brings health to the soul. Despite everything you’ve been through, can you say you’ve been through a good journey. And if so, all of this has contributed to the perfection of your soul.

God doesn’t want your money to out-prosper your soul. Neither does He want your marriage or career to prosper in a way that your soul has not. The above scripture is trying to get you past IMMEDIATE GRATIFICATION. You think prosperity is a result of immediate gratification, it’s not. It’s the result of a good journey.

As long as you chase money, you are going to be broke. You spend 30 years chasing money, you won’t have a skill at the end to make money come to you. You have to spend some time working on something, fail at it, leave it and come back crying to it.

There are no short-cuts to GREATNESS! Abundant living isn’t a result of a 2-3 step program. It’s takes focus, determination and work, but anything worth having is worth working for. And when you look back, you will realize that nothing ever manifested within your journey that was too much to handle. God just does not work like that.

Abundant living is the accumulation end- result of all the times you spend working, struggling and believing. And at the end, it’s the result of all the work you put in creating the possibility of that life through SERVICE and SACRIFICE. You work your way to an abundant life because you serve your way there. You spend years of your life sowing, blessing and giving. Then you get ready to reap some of what you sowed.

Don’t take short cuts! Life comes at you fast when you least expect it and you want to have sown the appropriate and seeds so when the moment comes, you are able to capitalize on it in the appropriate season. Genius, is people spending years practicing and perfecting and when the moment comes, they capitalize on it.

We want it more than we prepare for it. Prepare for what it is you asked God to do in your life. Abundant living is preparing for the blessing you asked for so when you get it you aren’t surprised!!

What’s your principal role in life right now? Mommy/daddy or husband/wife? Single/committed or broke/rich? Jesus gives us another option: at our best we are neither mommy, daddy, husband or wife, but we are SERVANTS! Commit to serving everybody in your house. If you come through the door I am serving you: guest, wife, child – it doesn’t matter. And think to yourself, this house isn’t my kingdom. It’s my platform to make manifest the grace of God.

Ask yourself these questions:

Who are you serving and what is the manner of your service? What is the quality – begrudgingly or with thanksgiving? List the people of your life that you are called to serve.

How is your ego responding to what God is asking you to do? Are you serving with an attitude? Does it come easy or natural or do you have to force yourself to serve? If the cameras aren’t on, will you serve or do you need an audience to serve?

Could you serve for the rest of your life and be happy, have joy, feel complete? Could you serve these people you are called to serve and be satisfied for the rest of your life or does ego demand that someone applaud?

You have people in your life that serve you and hold you up right now, but you spend most of your time trying to serve those who don’t care about you. Living a good life is serving everyone around you. EGO ruins everything. How can you have great things in your marriage, but make no investment? Be a servant, serve people, serve yourself.

Spend the rest of your week serving, doesn’t matter who it is and serve with a spirit of excellence. It’s an honor for me to serve you! You have dared to love me. In return, the least I can do is serve? With this mentality, ego is not involved. And refrain from worrying about whether or not they ever serve you back. When thinking of the life Jesus lived, who served Him? Who met his needs? No one! But he didn’t stop serving, so you keep serving. They killed Him, all they did was ignore you. If we don’t get our ego out of what we are doing. it will never end in a Godly way. Allow God to use us.